Larry Wilson: And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?

No, not because I have been particularly nice, or naughty. Not because I have done much in the way of shopping for loved ones. Certainly not because my spiritual house is particularly in order through any December epiphanies.

Yes, we do have the tree - huge! - up in the living room rather earlier than usual this year, but I think that's mostly because our darling daughter is coming home to help us decorate it on Saturday. So that's a sign of the looming holiday for sure.

But, really, it wasn't until I saw the landscaper - hired by the city? by the neighborhood association? I'm not sure - planting the annual poinsettias this morning in the pots that line the railing of the Holly Street bridge over the Arroyo Seco that I knew for sure that Christmas is just around the corner.

A happy sight - not one of those "Oh, my God" foreboding ones about the need to get one's act together for the holiday. I'll get it together soon enough, and well enough. I'll miss our rambling old family house on the other edge of the Arroyo this year, where the generations had gathered for over four decades at Christmas. But there'll be new traditions.

And one old tradition I'm thankful for is our readers' ongoing generosity in supporting the Charles Cherniss Tournament of Toys once again this Christmas. We had a great treelighting ceremony with the Pasadena Jaycees and the Tournament of Roses Royal Court at One Colorado the night after Thanksgiving. And so many of you all have been so thoughtful in supporting our buying of toys for children all over the San Gabriel Valley that the Jaycees' Santas and Mrs. Clauses deliver Christmas Eve.

There's still time to join the club, honor Chuck's memory and support OpSanta and the kids: Send your tax-deductible checks made out to Tournament of Toys to the CC ToT, c/o Larry Wilson, Pasadena Star-News, 911 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA. 91106.

One of the best Christmas presents that JPL could get was the news this month that on the strength of the Curiosity mission, its scientists and engineers get to go back to Mars with another rover in 2020 - or maybe even 2018, which aligns as well. Here's Adam Steltzner, entry, descent and landing engineer, in the December Esquire on his best month of 2012: After the complicated and successful landing, "We did a press conference, and then I went to a local bar that had stayed open for us. It was maybe 1:30 in the morning. I was pretty burnt, but it was a pretty wild party. The whole place was jumping. I can remember standing on top of the bar at some point. It was a big night. And then we had our baby - a baby girl, Olive - a few weeks later, on Aug. 31, the night of the Blue Moon. August 2012, man. That was some kind of month."